He'll manage about 150 IP as an SP. If he is an SuA, he'll pitch 120 innings of much higher leverage; he'll have a greater impact on wins and losses pitching the 7th and 8th of 60 close game a year than the 1st-5th of 30 random games.

That said, if you don't have 5 competent starters and/or you have a deep bullpen, it could be right to use him as a starter.

Getting back on track, I agree with Mike, it's better to get more innings out of your better pitchers, rather than worrying about "leverage". At around the 45 game mark, I converted Felipe Lee into a starter, and with 60 games still remaining in the season, he has now surpassed his career high in IP. I figure with his 53 stamina, he should be good for 140-150 IP per season

Posted by dedelman on 2/20/2013 10:49:00 PM (view original):I was wrong to use Relaford the way I did-- but Relaford's DUR/ST is 16/84, not 22/64. He can pitch more innings as a starter without in-game fatigue than the 22/64 guy can. Not a good comparison.

I look at it this way. I have approximately 1458 innings to cover. I can have my best pitchers pitch as many as possible or I can worry about who's pitching in the 7th inning. It seems crazy that I'd want my 15/50 DUR/STM combo absolute ace pitching 100 innings as a RP rather than him pitching 135 as a SP. If I have a great pitcher who can throw 50 pitches a game without wrecking the rest of my staff, he's a starter. He may never see the 5th inning. He may finish the season 0-6 because of that. But, if he has a WHIP of 1.02 and an ERA of 2.78, he'll get over not getting a win. And I'll be happy that he gave me almost 4 extra games of innings.

I have a 15/72 guy on one of my teams. He arguably has the best ratings of all my SP types on that team.

I don't have him in the rotation, but what I will do is tandem-B him whenever he's at 100% with whoever my regular starter is for that day. I'll also decrease the TPC/MPC for the A starter to try to ensure that my B guy gets his maximum innings, both for the game and, long term, for the season.

One of the side benefits of doing this is that my A starter won't get as fatigued and may be able to come back and pitch a day earlier than usual if he's a front of the rotation guy. If he's a back of the rotation guy, then I'm minimizing his innings.

As Mike said, not getting the maximum innings out of your best pitchers is doing yourself a disservice.

It's all about how you build your staff. As evidenced by my 7:53 post, I know I have two low inning SP on the horizon. I planned on that by trading for Anderson(26/99) who'll be a workhorse. Providing nothing changes over the next couple of seasons, Powell will be my SP1 with either Mahoney or Castilla at 2 and Anderson, saving the bullpen after a heavy workload from the previous day, at 3. Then the SP4 is whichever guy wasn't the SP2. I expect, at some point, Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Ivan Bonilla, another big innings guy, to round out my rotation. He was signed a month ago with that expectation.

This isn't rocket science. You can project your future team pretty easily and make moves to correct weaknesses.

Given all this... I have a 19 yr old 19/56 prospect who projects to be this type of starter. Should I be doing anything special to maximize his development, or is a regular turn in the rotation good enough?